So I’ve been interested in the idea of dreams for quite some time now, which has only been amplified by my mulitple viewings of Waking Life. Recent talks with a friend gave me an epiphany, which admittedly, is probably obvious to some: that, as adults, most of us have a very hard time dreaming. To this day, there are multiple dreams that I had growing up that I remember to this day. We are just so wrapped up in the “real world”, or everyday goings-on in the workplace and in our personal lives, that we take little time to just relax and dump our brains of all the tedious bullshit.

I don’t know how long this phase will last, but my motivation to get a real grasp on my dreams, and maybe even dream lucidly, has been rekindled. Over on my website, platea.us, I have a wiki for my own personal references for projects I’d like to one day accomplish. I think I’m going to start a Lucid Dreaming page there with linkdumps and whatnot.

What I’m going to start doing right away is changing where I sleep. My girlfriend stays at my place most nights of the week, and she sleeps closest to the alarm clock. I think I’m going to try and commandeer that side and leave a dream journal on my nightstand to log my dreams upon awakening (which I’ll try and remember to transcribe to an online dreamlog at my previously-mentioned wiki).

I’m also going to start taking melatonin supplements again. When I worked at Foxwoods, I worked third shift, and in the beginning, I had a hard time falling asleep during the day. I got home at around 9 or 10, and would go to bed at around lunchtime, when the sun is at its brightest. So I got room-darkening curtains and started taking melatonin, and not only did it help me fall asleep (as one would hope), but it also resulting in crazy-assed dreams. The idea is that your body naturally sleeps at night, so when it starts getting dark, you start to become drowsy. However, when you try and sleep in the middle of the day, your body has a hard time doing that; your mind is still active, even if you were up all night. Melatonin, in my experience, sort of tricks your body into thinking it’s night-time, and you’ll become drowsy within about a half-hour or so. So while it may not have much an effect in helping you sleep at night, at least it’ll help with the dreaming. (On a similar note, I’ve also heard that St. John’s Wart helps in a similar way.)

So stay tuned. For everyone’s sake, I probably won’t post dream logs for everyone’s sake, but I’ll try and post a weekly summary or somesuch.